TOPIC:

yes for a year or so. battery, patten fairings with endurance headlight, computer fans on rad, bicycle speedo etc. Was fab fun!

The Avatar is the brilliant carton that Mike Riley created in 1995.
He did another of a Nordie doing a wheelie, most of us had T shirts with that on.
I remember the Garry Rowe special split its Nordie cases, Nigel “Stoppie” Windess welded them and then they could not get the shafts in because the gears were too close together!
They got new cases and Nigel made a plate jig to bolt to the case to keep it from distorting while he welded strengthening in, it worked and I don’t think they ever had any more problems.
I also remember knackering myself pushing it round Cadwell trying to get it to start!
And the RC750!!!! What a brilliant engine. It is still ahead of the game today. It was reliably doing 75hp in the days when the Gilera team won the European singles championship with a 50hp Saturno. The engine was designed to do 90hp with fuel injection! Gilera was so often a world leader.
And don’t forget that Bimotta were going to use it for the power of the single that ended up with the BMW unit. I have the Alan Cathcart track test of the prototype somewhere he was very complimentary.

72degrees wrote:

Got a spare GFR. Should have kept the second ratty Nordwest.

Do you know what became of the designs and tooling that went to Guzzi.

Presumably it came back home when Piaggio bought them.

I like the avatar by the way

Yes where did the engine go to? No one will admit to knowing.
The last time I heard of it was when the old Norton company were going to buy it.
Does anyone remember that?
That Canadian guy was actually arrested at Heathrow on his way to Italy to sign the contract!

David wrote:

The Avatar is the brilliant carton that Mike Riley created in 1995.
He did another of a Nordie doing a wheelie, most of us had T shirts with that on.
I remember the Garry Rowe special split its Nordie cases, Nigel “Stoppie” Windess welded them and then they could not get the shafts in because the gears were too close together!
They got new cases and Nigel made a plate jig to bolt to the case to keep it from distorting while he welded strengthening in, it worked and I don’t think they ever had any more problems.
I also remember knackering myself pushing it round Cadwell trying to get it to start!
And the RC750!!!! What a brilliant engine. It is still ahead of the game today. It was reliably doing 75hp in the days when the Gilera team won the European singles championship with a 50hp Saturno. The engine was designed to do 90hp with fuel injection! Gilera was so often a world leader.
And don’t forget that Bimotta were going to use it for the power of the single that ended up with the BMW unit. I have the Alan Cathcart track test of the prototype somewhere he was very complimentary.

Any chance of more T shirts being printed

So from the info on this thread it looks like the spare Nordwest engine could come in handy, all I have to find is a gfr rolling chassis to build a sort of Piuma rep then I have the complete set??

I somehow have the email adress of Mike Riley.
And of course i have the printed cartoons and some Shirts

ciao joachim

BTW Gilera Bomota 750? RC750?
Those who have an account on gileraclub.de may have a look at those pics.
www.gileraclub.de/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=50...&hilit=bimota#p31264

There was another T shirt with a lot of the various old and new Gilera logos printed on it. I have a very faded example somewhere.

No chance of T shirts without a fee paying 'club' and a committee, or possibly a one off fee incluing a T shirt like Club Aprilia. That would require what I think financiers call "seed corn" though.

Mike has registered for the new GeN but he is having a bike free period at present. I may ask him if he still has the original art work.